Last Sunday, April 21st, the Southeastern Michigan Bluegrass Music Association held its showcase of the Youth Scholarship recipients at Woldumar Nature Center in Lansing. It was great to see the four students perform, and even better to see a great turnout for an audience. I tried once again to video the event, and while the video itself was good, the audio going into the built-in microphone was terrible. Hopefully I can get the hang of this camcorder someday.
I had mentioned this showcase a few weeks ago (https://luegra.design.blog/2024/03/09/sembma-youth-showcase-april-21st/), and was glad that it was a moderate success. SEMBMA member Marcia Bailey also brought a few instruments for interested kids to try out at the Association’s “petting zoo.”
What made me pleased the most was that the four students are really passionate about improving on their playing. Eleven-year-old Dominic impressed me the most with his off-the-cuff knowledge of old-time fiddle tunes that he was warming up to. Belinda is another 11-year-old fiddler that I first saw at the Michigan Old-Time Fiddlers Contest back in 2022 and worked hard to get her parents to apply for a scholarship. She has a great teacher in Keala Venema, who is a well-known fiddler in the western part of the State. Thirteen-year-old Henson was performing standard banjo tunes in the style of Earl Scruggs. Lydia was also performing on banjo, but I was really impressed by her strong vocals for a girl of 14.
The four joined their instructors for a jam session at the end of the performance. It was great to talk to Keala again, as well as talk to some of the parents about how proud they are of the students. I was really glad to see Lydia jamming with some of the older musicians at the session going on downstairs.
I hope that between seeing these performers, as well as testing out some instruments in the petting zoo, that we can see more young people interested in taking up an instruments and pursuing music as a dedicated hobby or even an eventual career. I was able to talk to one mother who was really interested in getting her son involved, as he plays violin at school but is more interested in bluegrass and folk music than classical.
For more news about the event, you can visit the Bluegrass Today website where SEMBMA president Bill Warren posted some of his photos (https://bluegrasstoday.com/woldumar-nature-center-monthly-jam-in-lansing/). There’s one of me with a really small guitar. It says that I am part of the jam session, but I was really only tuning the thing for the petting zoo.
Chew on it and comment.
Luegra 